I just realised that I have not posted anything to this blog for not far off 10 years! Having just found that this was running again I decided I would post some of my thoughts on something else previously forgotten - my childhood computer: The Atari ST!
This computer was my first ever "proper" computer (I had an Atari 1040STfm) in the early 90s - I was late to the game as it was a cast off from one of my dad's friends at work, with my only previous experience of any kind of computer being a Sega Master System.
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| In the end young me would pick the console gaming route over the Atari ST |
While initially underwhelmed with the system due to the long load times from the floppy disk, I did enjoy being able use the "mouse" and quickly went through the massive pile of floppy disks that came with the machine.
However 6 year old me would soon tire of the machine and it was consigned to history. I would in fact get it back (and lose it again) over the years as it went to various family and friends.
Come 2022 and with renewed interest in the platform I picked up an Atari ST from my local Retro Game store and again struggled with the now terribly unreliable floppy disks (however it was great when they worked) but I did get a glimpse of this incredible machine and so decided to invest in an Atari ST Hard Drive to SD Card convertor called SD4ST - ebay link included.
This allows for the "backup copies" of your games to be run from an SD card (HDD optimised versions of games can be downloaded from Petari's HD adapted games images - as with ROMs for other platforms I would suggest that this is only a viable option for those who own the original game floppy disks etc...
Along with an Atari ST to USB mouse adapter (a must as the Atari mouse was not brilliant back in the day and 30 years have not been kind to it).
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| Adding USB mouse support is a real quality of life improvement! |
I have been playing through Civilization 1 on the original hardware (coupled to my modern monitor with a SCART to HDMI adapter)
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| Conquered most of the world as the Egyptians in Civilization 1 |
I have found a copy of "C-manship Complete by Clayton Walnut" and intend to do a little bit of C development on this old machine using "Pure C" as a bit of a side project to see what I can do. I was starting out with an inventory system for keeping track of items stored in a Cellar!
PS - Won the game of Civilization - only to have the game crash in the end sequence... Running 30 odd year old hardware is not without its pitfalls :)
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| Thats an error with style, looks like the 3 frames of animation for Abe's head (just not attached to his body) |
